Juno Recommends Experimental March 2021

Review: Bandmates Peter Christopherson and John Balance were allegedly holed up in a Victorian mansion in the almost-forgotten English seaside town of Weston-Super-Mare, in the midst of a drug binge when they got cracking on Musick To Play In The Dark. Location aside, it's hardly the most original genesis of an album, but nevertheless the end product was a sign of just how talented the artists are - give the average person a bag full of powders and pills and ask them for a record. Then see what happens.

Coil's tenth album arrived in 1999, bookending one part of their story and beginning the next. It's here the players opted to embrace ambient, glitch, minimalism and 'kosmische musik' - experimental rock sub-genre 'cosmic music' popularised in West Germany during the late-1960s. Or, to use the outfit's own terminology, they invented 'moon musick', marking their transition to a "lunar group". The results are mesmerising.

Review: RECOMMENDED
This is a release that's thick with musical personality, layers, uses and ideas, which is why we're adamant it's going in the basket. A small but varied and well-chosen selection of remixers take on the original work of Rheinzand, better known to some as Reinhard Vanbergen, Charlotte Caluwaerts and Mo Disko.

As cosmic as all that might sound the versions here manage to lift us higher still into the stratosphere. 'Obey' gets turned into a trance-edged progressive chugger that makes clever use of percussion to keep things fresh as you could ask for. So props to Hardway Bros on that one. Red Axes bring on the slow, hypnotic, Sabres of Paradise-style otherworldly sludge with their interpretation of 'Kills & Kisses', and the remaining two pieces offer rich, textured electronic pop loveliness and epic, trippy soundscapes.

Review: Flowered Knife Shadows is, by anyone's book, a rather odd title for an album, even one with clear experimental intent. It comes courtesy of Exael, a producer from Germany whose previous under-reported outings have shuffled between fractured techno, droning tones and unsettling ambient. This time round, she's drawn on an even wider variety of influences and inspirations, flitting between throbbing industrial techno (the hectic hum of 'Quikgel'), deep space ghetto-tech ('Kotch Metish (Exael Remix)'), sludgy doom-tronica ('Boneheaded'), IDM (the Autechre-in-deep space flex of 'Fig Jelly', and the melodious fizz of 'Anc), and - as you'd expect - hushed mutations of ambient electronica ('Ko').

Review: Aleksandir makes a great impression with his debut album, Omena, on the Skin label. It finds him push outside his comfort zone musically and conceptually and results in a truly personal and expressive record of electronic experimentation. It plots a line between uptempo and light tracks, and more doleful and dark material - but is that but just how life's? The always inventive rhythms range from worldly and funky to airy broken beats via immersive ambient. What's more, for the first time on record, Aleksandir uses his own voice on tracks for an extra personal dimension.

Review: Over the last five years, few producers have consistently delivered quite as many inspired, off-kilter and musically diverse albums as Phoebe Guillemot AKA Ramzi. It's for that reason that Cocon, her first full-length since late 2019, is such a significant release. Once agin, she's delivered a wonderfully immersive and impossible-to-pigeonhole affair rich in swelling synthesizer motifs, drifting chords, bubbly melodies, brilliantly programmed rhythms (think slipped D&B, IDM, post trip-hop, and pitched-down breaks), squeezable analogue basslines and occasional use of exotic instrumentation. Hugely listenable and accessible but with enough depth, variety and sonic imagination to please the heads, it's enough deep and immersive triumph.

Review: Having kept his silence for much of the past four years, Nicolas Jaar has finally broken cover to release not one but two new albums under his given name. Telas, which follows the highly personal and critically acclaimed Cenizas, was recorded largely in isolation and consists of four lengthy aural tracts strewn across four sides of wax. Almost entirely beat-free and ambient, it sees Jaar make use of all manner of custom-made instruments, squally jazz horns, unusual instrumentation (a bass clarinet features heavily on one cut) and his usual evocative electronics to create slowly-shifting epics that variously doff a cap to Reich/Riley/Glass style minimalism, Stockhausen-esque sound collage, the ambient works of Brian Eno and, most impressively, the 'Fourth World' sounds of Jon Hassell.

Review: Since launching a few years back, Matthew Halsall's Gondwana Records has released some terrific albums from a string of talented but often little-known artists. This brilliant set is another. It comes from Hania Rani, a pianist, composer and producer better known for her collaborative work with the likes of Christian Loffler, Dobrawa Czocher and Hior Chronik. 'Esja' is Rani's solo debut and sees her sashay between atmospheric, often poignant pieces that put her impeccable piano playing at the heart of the action. It's exceedingly elegant and picturesque, with Rani's subtle use of field recordings and crackling background noise only enhancing the listening experience.

Review: Spanish producer SeNora makes fine use of the space afforded him on this double album for Lurid by showcasing the full extent of his hypnotic rhythms. He draws on rich found sounds and smart samples (voices, electronic static, bird calls) to add details to the music that make them all the more engaging and cinematic having already become a firm favourite with the likes of the late, great Andrew Weatherall and his ALFOS partner in sonic crime, Sean Johnson. Here he slithers and slides his way through nocturnal headspaces on icy drums and warped synths, snaking bass and mediative pads that sink you ever deeper into a cathartic mid-tempo mind state.

Review: Saele Valese's music has always been a unique proposition. Rooted in sound design and the potential of atmospheric aural textures, his few releases to date have sat somewhere in between drone, dub techno, ghostly ambient and the more minimalistic end of electronica. On IVIC, his long-promised debut album, Valese continues to explore this intoxicating and immersive trademark sound, unveiling slowly shifting suites of tracks crafted from creeping drone tones, softly swelling ambient chords, occasional sub-bass tones and sparse, pared-back electronic rhythms. For the most part the tone is clandestine and mildly unsettling, with periods of decaying beauty interspersed with strangely hypnotic outings and genuinely chilling musical moments.

Review: If you've not come across Francis Plagne on your musical travels then allow us to introduce; the Mel-bourne, Australia man is known for songwriting, improvised (solo and group) performances, abstract instrumentals and techniques directly inspired by musique concrete. He's also known as the man who set up the Mould Museum imprint, and - alongside James Rushford and Joe Talia - one third of Food Court. Not to mention a regular collaborator with Black Truffle's crys cole, and English ambient type Andrew Chalk.

Scene set, hopefully, Rural Objects is a lot like what you may have been expecting based on that brief biography. A series of chronologically numbered micro-symphonies, at times it's more experimental sound art, in other moments there's tangible song form at play taking in a broad spectrum of instru-ments, touch points and moods, it's accomplished and adventurous in equal measure.

Review: After the renaming of parent label Whities to AD93, they have now decided to launch an experimental offshoot called Liyth Dolina, which presents its inaugural release here in the form of this various artists compilation. Brabuhr Q-ih calls on four artists to portray the label's vision: J. Farmer aka Love Horses contributes the brooding and twisted braindance of 'K Den' and the death of euphoria on the rave deconstruction of 'Beep Of Bodming Mor'. Elsewhere, The Jaffa Kid's introspective junglist roller 'Sbds' was another highlight, as was the contorted and bittersweet ambient experiment 'RDM17-05' by Whylie, and Bot1500 (Shinichi Kobayashi) channeling the zeitgeist of early Warp records on the blissed-out IDM of 'Seabird 2'.

Review: Infine France is a real seal of quality, the label carrying this release, and lauded producer-DJ Agoria's own little corner of the electronic music world. Comparatively unlike many other imprints we know of, it's a place where heartbreaking experimental pianos regularly collide with classical symphonies and operatic nuances. On this collection of remixes of Rone, the variety is similarly broad.

One look at who's involved should make that clear already, though. Opening on one of melodic techno's biggest names, Maceo Plex, from that string-dominated, harmonious chugger we move onto more leftfield sounds. Whether that's the atmospheric sci-fi electro step of Plaid's take on the original album's title track, Room With A View, Kmru's vast but desolate ambient interpretation of the same number, or rapidly rising dance star Loraine James' fast-paced, staccato bass version of 'Ginkgo Biloba'.